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Jane Fishman: Hard to shake the Israel from a Savannah girl

After many trips, I come home, unpack, do my laundry, finish a journal of words and images I always try to keep, tuck away a few presents for later, luxuriate in my own bed with my own pillow, make coffee the way I like it and try to jump back into a stream of life (the gym, the mail, the garden, the chickens, the worms, the ornery car) that stops for no one.

This trip — to Israel — was a little different.

This was not so easy to shake. This one took me to a part of the world I’ve never ventured (Iraq? Nope. Iran? Never. Lebanon? Syria? Jordan? Syria? No, no, no and no).

I didn’t know the language, although all signs — not unlike Canada with accommodations toward the French- and English-speaking populations — are supposed to be in Hebrew, Arabic and English. The workweek runs Sunday through Thursday. And though I know Hebrew reads from right to left, it never occurred to me that people would write from right to left as well.

Post-trip, my geography is a little better. Now I know where Lebanon sits (just north of Israel) and when it was formed (in the 1920s, another carved-up remnant of the Ottoman Empire and the colonial French) — and neighboring Jordan to the east, also a made-up country, this time from the British and the French.

I’ve seen Orthodox Jews before with the black pants, the starched white shirts, the fringes under their clothes — a custom that goes back some 4,000 years — and the tall, black, wide-rimmed hats. But I’ve never seen men trying to squeeze these hats into the overhead of the plane I flew from New York to Tel Aviv. Not easy.

It’s not easy being around people who hold themselves apart, either, since some of the men aren’t supposed to sit beside women or even talk to women unrelated to them. This frosty attitude changed a bit when I spotted a passport one of the men had dropped in the airplane. Then, he wasn’t so frosty. Instead he looked me in the eye and tapped his heart.

“Is it always like this?” I said to a woman across the aisle as people worked to change seats. “This chaotic?”

That’s when she taught me a handy Hebrew word: balagan. It means topsy-turvy, she said, “probably from Russian. But everything will settle down.”

And it did.

Except when they started praying in the middle of the night — and in the Delta gate — holding their prayer books, rocking back and forth, moving their lips quietly. But it didn’t last long and they were quiet ...

Before this trip I never really associated Orthodox Judaism with the Amish Mennonites or the Puritans from England. But, really, all three groups are traditionalists. All three are passionate, ultra-religious, somewhat separatist peoples with ancient customs, fervent beliefs. There’s something there you have to respect.

Closer to home, never in a million years did I think to equate Orthodox Jews with Rastafarians or, better yet, urban youth. Yet that thought hit me over the head the other day when I pulled up to a red light on Victory Drive and there next to me, waiting for the light to change, was a young black man feverishly twisting his dreadlocks. This looks familiar, I said to myself, before remembering the sidelocks or sidecurls (payot in Hebrew) worn and twisted by men and boys in the Orthodox Jewish community.

Jerusalem alone might be the most ancient city I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t help but wonder who had walked the narrow, sun-deprived passageways before me. An Armenian archbishop from the fourth century, perhaps? And what do I know of Armenia except that most Armenian names end in -ian — something I know from a Royal Oak, Mich., high school friend, Nancy Nahabidian. Her family owned a rug store.

For our last meal in Tel Aviv — after a trip to the mall where we traipsed by kiosk after kitschy kiosk of Valentine crapola (no country has a lock on kitsch) and I made a final purchase (some fabulous Naot shoes, an Israeli brand) — we went to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Shemesh for a juicy shwarma. A shwarma is kind of like an Arby’s sandwich except it’s made with turkey and is seasoned with turmeric and other secret spices.

When I got back to Savannah, I looked up shwarma online to get the right spelling. That’s when I learned there was one in Savannah. Oh, joy!

The next day when I went to get the address I saw it had closed. Very disappointing. Very grounding. The trip is officially over.